I
squeezed my eyes shut, determined not to let the stupid fear take me. The
Devourer wasn’t in this place, I reminded myself. There was nothing left to be
afraid of. I had already died. I had even come to terms with never being able
to make things right, being betrayed by the man I’d thought I loved, and you
know what? I was okay with all that unfinished business. But Titania, the
fucking bitch, had decided that of all the recently deceased human souls in the
existence, she wanted mine to be her slave.

A
monstrous roar ripped through my thoughts; instinctively, my flesh body tried
to cower, needing a place to run and hide, even as I realized that this could
be the solution to all my problems.

“…
I had nothing to do with it!” Titania said, her voice echoing with magic.

A
massive scaled white claw scraped against the protective bubble arcing over us.
The black talons broke through the bubble. The resulting blast of air, stinking
of smoke, ignited the leaves and trees nearest the break.

A
thickly muscled black man, with only a hint of salt and pepper in his hair to
betray his age, leaned toward the queen. “You have to get him to stop, Your Majesty.”

Titania
gritted her teeth, and for a moment, it looked as if the flowers in her hair
had turned into thorns. “What. Does. It. Look. Like. I’m. Doing? None of your
human weaponry will work on this one. This is why I needed that thing,” she said, glaring at me, as if I
could do something.

He
kissed her hand. “Do the right thing, please, Your Majesty.”

Titania
sighed.

The
fire tornado outside swirled and coalesced around a pillar of white fire reaching
skyward.

Out
of the inferno walked a man in a white suit.

The
man placed a glowing hand on Titania’s bubble. Electric sparks crackled blue,
and the air grew heavy with the scent of ozone and ash. There was an intense
pressure as if my ears were going to pop.

Then
without further fanfare, sound, or fury, Titania’s shield was gone. There was
nothing left to stop him.

What
the hell? He wasn’t just wearing white but a formal white suit. Were we being
sieged by a wedding party?

It
was pristine, as if he had just put it on, rather than having spent the last
hour or so launching bolts of acidic fire at Titania’s magic shield. The formal
jacket was open, revealing a white shirt underneath that was unbuttoned at the
throat. The only bits of color were the strip of black belt at his waist and
what looked like spotless black Italian leather shoes.

“He’s
not in dragon form. He’s not even wearing his armor,” gasped one of Titania’s flower-covered
lady/maidens/whatever the fuck they were.

Though
his clothing was far from serious, his shockingly handsome face was flat and emotionless.
His shoulders were back, his head held high, his gaze trained in on Titania,
with only one thing clear on his mind.

If
I were lucky, he really would have a death gaze and kill her for me right there
and I’d be free.

No
such luck, of course.

He
strode across the carefully manicured grass with the stance of a conqueror.

Titania
sat on her throne, the expression on her face unimpressed, but the stiffness of
her posture betrayed her underlying emotion. I had been eavesdropping as her
harem guard reported the dragon’s progress. They had begged her to let them go
up against the dragon, but she had forbidden every one of them, choosing
instead to rely on her own magic.

And
now, we were all likely to die.

I
smiled.

The
dragon stood beneath Titania on the dais, looking up at her, yet it was clear
that he had all the power.

Titania
sneered. “How long have you been searching for the Angel of Death? Attempt it,
dragon, and you’ll never find him, or your sister, Aurora.”

Rory
was his sister?

I
realized why Titania had ordered me here. I had been there that night, when
Aurora—or Rory, as she insisted, I call her—a visitor to Titania’s court, had
been abducted from the library by a winged man.

Of
all the people in Titania’s court, only Rory had shown me kindness, had been
the only one to tell me what I was to help me adjust to my new situation of
being brought back from the dead and enslaved to a fairy queen.

What
had happened that night?

I
closed my eyes, trying to remember. Heat, smoke, the lack of breath.

Something
shattering. A snarl. And then darkness.

A
needle shoved its way into my skull.

I
opened my eyes and saw Titania glancing at me with her calculating eyes.

Had
she planned this?

That
fucking bitch.

I
touched my head. This time she let me.

Had
she been interfering with my memories too?

I
turned back to the man in white. Dragonfire was what I needed, Aurora had said,
to get what I needed.

An
end to this fucking imprisonment disguised as a second life.

And
any chance of getting what I wanted would be far better with him than being
stuck for eternity in this perfumed bitch’s playland as her slave.

“Dragon!”
I said, my voice as loud as I could make it. My words sounded terribly squeaky,
not at all like I had intended. Wait, Titania was letting me move? Fuck. This was a part of some plan of hers. It was
too late for me to back down now. “I was there the night the Angel of Death
came for your sister. I can help you—”

The
invisible hand of Titania’s magic clamped over my mouth.

I
tried to kick out and scream, but Titania’s magic locked down on my limbs like
iron chains.

Sense
memories tickled in the back of my mind. Once they would have driven me to
despair and more drugs, but now, with the distance of death, my old life was
more like a movie I had been forced to watch and remember.

“Let
her speak,” the dragon said.

“Do
it,” said Titania.

A
hard shove made me stumble closer.

“Take
me! And I will help you find her!” I yelled, as if the volume of my voice could
hide the fact that I was lying. I had no idea how to find her. I just wanted
him to blow his dragonfire on me and end my useless existence. I had to think
of him as a mark, only he didn’t want sex. He wanted vengeance. I could work
with that.

The
dragon stared at me with his golden eyes, evaluating, measuring, contemplating.

My
chances were slipping.

Desperate
words spurted out of me like arterial blood. “Your sister told me I was a vengeance
demon, a wronged human resurrected to wreck revenge. If you are hunting the
Angel of Death, you need me.”

“Tanya,”
said the dark-skinned man, placing his hand on her arm. “Balance. His sister
was taken from your protection. You owe him something.”

The
strange pressure welled up inside me, with a buzzing prickle I had learned to
recognize was magic.

Did
I have magic?

It
moved again inside me.

Titania
frowned.

It
was magic. I had magic.

The
whole world went still at that moment.

She
took something off her finger and flicked it to the dragon.

My
freedom!

I
pulled at the magic inside me, trying to take hold of it, use it, make it obey
me somehow, but I didn’t have the faintest clue how. It was like discovering
newly attached wings that you didn’t even know how to flap.

I
struggled with my magic, trying to get to the sliver of metal that was my fate,
my future, my freedom.

Titania’s
invisible shackles twisted, and in a blink my potential freedom was gone.

No,
not again!

The
dragon closed a large fist around it in midair, capturing the ring that bound
me to life.

Instantly,
I was covered with heat, with his scent and fire.

Before
I realized it, I could smell the ash in my chest, feel the weight of gravity in
my flesh.

Flesh?
I was back in the flesh!

“She’s
an onryo,” said Titania.

His
gaze slid over me, and my skin flushed hot. It must have been the magic because
I was used to being looked over like a piece of meat. “She doesn’t look
Japanese.”

Titania
waved condescendingly and sneered. “It’s a human word for a human thing, I
can’t be expected to keep all the different languages of Man straight. The need
for vengeance is universal. Beware of what you ask for, dragon. This one has
not quite adjusted to her situation.” Titania chuckled, reminding me of the
cheerleading bitches in high school who laughed at me behind my back and turned
my mother’s country into an epithet with the words “Mexico girl.”

“How
do I know that this isn’t one of those double-edged fairy gifts?” asked the dragon.

“This
isn’t a gift,” said Titania. “It’s balance.”

I
should have been angry. But instead, I was just cold. Life was slavery. Death
was the only true escape.

Fire
licked and curled around his suit. The air became strangely hard to breathe as
a strange pressure filled the air and the scent of burnt things returned. His
voice was a frigid contrast to the living inferno his magic promised. “Nothing
can balance your failure to protect my sister, a guest you were honor-bound to defend
in your domain.”

Titania
glanced at the guard holding me.

I
was thrown forward until I sprawled before him on my knees.

I
saw him glance at me, his expression unchanged before resuming his death gaze
at Titania. Wow. He was good-looking even close up. But I knew without a doubt
that it was a mask for the monster he truly was.

Something
clattered on the stones next to me.

A
diamond-tipped golden spear.

“You
know what this is.” Titania smiled, a pointed-tooth smile, the kind she rarely
revealed in her true form.

Fuck.

The
fairy bitch had planned this whole
thing. What the fuck?
Titania’s voice was as queenly and smug as ever. “The weapon and this
spirit will be more than enough balance. Now go! And get off my lands.”

Amazon UK has just placed the VERY first Dragon Lovers book, into the PRIME reading program! (Sorry US readers, Amazon Prime reading is an invite only and Amazon US hasn’t invited the Dragon Lovers to be a part of US PRIME Reading….yet!) So if you have Amazon PRIME in the UK, you can read BETROTHED TO THE DRAGON for FREE!

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Kara Lockharte is the author of the Lick of Fire - Dragon Lovers Series and Space Shifter Chronicles. She loves writing romances with sexy alpha alien shifters and strong heroines.
She lives on Planet Earth.